An Equal Threat
by Discovercat
Summary: All seems well, but a new generation must face the wizarding world's greatest challenge yet: the rest of the world. Roxanne Weasley is caught in a struggle for survival after the Statute of Secrecy is breached and civil war erupts.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Although I'm more of an EWE person, this plot-bunny wouldn't leave me alone and so I'm taking the Next Gen out for a ride.

Disclaimer: I do not in any shape, form, or fashion own Harry Potter.

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><p>Prologue<p>

In a room in a secret base known to very few, a tall man barked orders while he waited for his meeting to begin. He kept his demeanor stiff and straight as was befitting his station despite his weariness at what he was beginning to suspect was willful ignorance on the part of a subordinate that continued to question the future treatment of what this white coat clad subordinate called the 'prisoner'.

He called it 'creature'.

It might resemble them outwardly, but there was nothing human about the filthy thing huddled in the corner of the room on the opposite side of the one way mirror. Its outward shell didn't affect his judgment; neither did its youthful appearance. At one point he might have hesitated, but he knew what it was capable of now and would not fall for its deceitful ploys.

No. He would not be fooled by its false tears and cries of pain.

The door beeped, announcing the arrival of the men he'd been waiting for. He walked over to the console that showed them waiting for him to let him in from the last chamber. This compound had the highest security clearance in the country and all who wished to get into the observation room of one of the creatures housed here had to go through fifteen security checkpoints. And each checkpoint was specifically designed to ensure that no one could get in without it being well documented and to prevent a free creature from breaking in.

This was the second base; a creature had succeeded in getting into the first and they'd barely managed to subdue it, but they'd learned their lesson. They always learned from their mistakes and adapted and moved on. The creatures didn't.

He typed in the code that opened the heavy steel door and five men entered. They bypassed the white coats and stood at attention in the center of the room facing him. He walked towards them and they saluted him and said his name in unison.

"Gentlemen," he surveyed his latest potential recruits. As usual, these were the best of the best. Each man had been hand-selected and background checked even more thoroughly than national security agents. He knew that the man on the left was the fifth generation descendent of Russian immigrant Dmitri and Kyria Zhutinev from Moscow and that the redhead man next to him had a half sister and brother living in Glasglow from an affair his father had that the redhead was unaware of. He knew details about each man's life and background that most would consider invasive and overboard, but he and his branch considered necessary to make sure that they held no ties to the creatures.

He let the silence between them stretch out for ten minutes and was satisfied that none of them fidgeted or betrayed any emotion on their face. However, many had passed that trial; most of the men who'd passed through this room had done things for their country that could and would never be praised or lauded in the news. This mission was one of them.

"You all have been chosen because you are the best and my unit demands the best. If you can handle this, then you will join current operations. If not, you will be let go." He met each gaze, letting them decide what 'letting go' would ensue considering that now that they'd seen the base they would be liabilities if they weren't chosen. "Turn around gentlemen and face our world's biggest threat."

They about-faced and looked into the other room; he looked at them. He could tell the exact moment each of them recognized the youth of the creature, three of them flinched, a slight widening of the eye that he would have missed had he not been doing this for so long was all that betrayed the other two.

"Sir?" One of the flinchers questioned.

"Do not be fooled by this abomination's guise." He knew what their untrained eyes saw: a filthy little boy, emaciated so that all his bones were showing, with dark tangled hair and wide blue eyes bright with tears. "This thing is not like you or I, not human."

Three of them had children that were around the same age as the creature. The other two had siblings that age.

None of them gaped, they had too much training for that, but their stilted reactions showed him their disbelief.

"Not human sir?" The redhead asked after a few minutes of silence; he had a young daughter. "The child is not human?"

"Not human." He repeated.

This entire operation had taught him that no matter how highly trained and programmed the soldiers you brought in, men who would not question murder, fraud, or theft for their country, the moment you brought in the supernatural, some of that unrelenting loyalty was shaken.

"Dr. Loyan, start the demonstration." He motioned to his main headache and the white coated man keyed in the code. "Watch closely gentlemen. Officer McFersen, please approach the glass. Keep in mind that its one way."

"Sir?" Dr. Loyan asked. "The system is ready."

"Proceed."

"Proceeding." Dr. Loyan entered in the next part of the code.

The left side of the floor in the prison opened and a metallic box rose up. The creature scrambled to its feet and began screaming wordlessly. Its eyes locked on McFersen despite the fact that it shouldn't be able to see him and it launched itself at the spot he was standing, kicking and screaming at the reinforced glass.

McFersen's eyes widened again. "The glass is one way sir?"

"Yes."

The box stopped its ascension with a click and the creature went even madder; it's flailing against the glass increased, betraying strength that would have been impossible had it been human. Sparks shot off the creature and the box turned into a raging elephant.

All of the potential recruits cursed and McFersen jumped back. The elephant began throwing itself around the room even harder than the child.

"Relax, gentlemen. This cage is reinforced to the maximum. A tank at full speed couldn't get through it." This wasn't the first time a large animal had appeared in the cage with the thing.

Blood dripped down the glass moments later when the elephant's head gave way from the force of its charge. The animal fell and disappeared before it could crush the creature but the blood didn't. The creature stared at them, at McFersen with feral hatred and rage in its eyes. Some energy akin to lightening repeatedly arced from the creature then and hit the glass exactly in the position the redhead was standing. The blood on the window sizzled and burned and the energy kept coming. The creature fell to its knees, the energy still striking, it's mouth opened as it now screamed 'die' with each strike.

The glass began to crack. He didn't move back like them because he knew that there were two panes and that the one closest to them had a current of energy running through it that disabled the creatures' unnatural powers.

"My god." One of them whispered.

He waited until the cracks spread across the window, waited until he saw that each of them truly understood the horror of what they were seeing.

"Dr. Loyan, end demonstration."

"Ending demonstration." The doctor's hands were a blur and then electricity shot from the box and struck the creature in the back.

The force was so strong that small creature slammed into the glass again. They all heard the snapping of its left arm and saw it bend into an unnatural angle after the creature hit the floor. Then, most importantly, they all saw the arm crack back into the right position.

There was silence as the box descended back into the floor and the glass pane the creature had splintered slid out and was replaced by a new one.

"What… what is that?" McFersen gasped out.

"An abomination." He answered. "A creature that poses as human while preying on us."

All of them looked shaken and none of them contested his statement this time which gave him hope for their suitability.

"And this was simply one of the younger ones. The older ones are even more dangerous and wily." The larger creatures were held in more secure cages in other parts of the base; that had been another lesson learned the hard way, don't let them congregate or even look at the other.

They blanched, their faces mirroring his when he'd first learned of the creatures.

"But how, sir?" This question was from the Russian descendant, Officer Albright.

He walked over the wall, placed his hand on a scanner designed to look like a keypad, and part of the wall rose, showing another room.

"Follow me." This room was smaller than the last and held no view of the creature, but it did have wall sized screens on all walls including the one with the door and two rows of five seats each in the middle. He stood next to the first screen. "Take a seat gentleman and prepare yourself. This is a conspiracy that it took the UN five years to begin to understand."

He put his hand against another concealed fingerprint scanner and faced the similarly concealed retina scanner.

"ID confirmed." A female voice intoned from the speaker in the ceiling. "Welcome Commander. What sequence do you wish to show?"

"Discovery Alpha Complete."

"Understood. Showing Discovery Alpha Complete." The screens came to life, displaying a timeline with pictures denoting the videos that went with them.

The timeline started in the eighteenth century with an obscure often overlooked document that stated that the king acknowledged those other natured were allowed to govern themselves as long as it didn't interfere with normal British citizens. Most historians attributed this document to the king letting some ethnic group have religious freedom or autonomy within reason but it, like other mysterious pieces of history, had come to light with the truth.

"We first became aware of these creatures approximately two and a half years ago though, as you can see, they have been around us for centuries."

They nodded at that.

"They call themselves wizards and witches like the stories. They can channel an energy not found in humans that they call magic. They live longer than us and are harder to kill. And the majority of them view us the same way that we do apes. Any questions?"

McFersen's arm twitched.

"McFersen. Do you have something to say?" He asked.

"Yes, sir. Why now? If they've been around for as long as you say, why are we acting now?"

The current events screen was on the next wall, so all they could currently see was what his team had gleaned from history. What myths and things thought of as hoaxes at the time had turned out to be true, how their forefathers had been subtly manipulated.

So, it was going to be one of these groups. Some potential recruits waited until the end, not asking questions until they'd been presented with information and getting the reason for all of this afterwards. Others, the groups he preferred because on the whole those groups were more likely to have men join his cause, wanted to know the reason up front and filter information through that angle.

"You've all heard of the Brockdale bridge tragedy? Or the Lafayette incident? Or the Crawford nuclear meltdown?" Each of the events had been well publicized and talked about for months and was still considered some of the worst disasters in British history.

"Yes sir." They answered. Every British citizen had heard of them more than once.

The Brockdale bridge tragedy had happened 25 years ago and was just the most horrible happening in one of the most casualty filled years that England had ever witnessed. On a Friday afternoon during rush hour in the summer of 1996 in one of the most populated cities in England, a bridge collapsed. The death toll was in the thousands and they still didn't have an accurate count of everybody who'd died; bodies from that disaster still occasionally washed up on the shore. Engineers and bridge experts alike had been beyond perplexed at how a bridge that had shown no sign of the structural instability necessary to collapse so completely had done so. "Impossible" had been a word used to describe the occurrence as the bridge had collapsed far quicker than it should have and cars had inexplicably exploded in the air as they fell. Experts to this day couldn't explain it.

The Lafayette incident was even more perplexing though the death toll was only about a hundred. The Lafayette football stadium had exploded during a match ten years ago. That wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that almost everyone who'd been in the stadium as it had exploded had somehow appeared five miles to the east of the stadium with no clue of how they'd gotten there beyond some vague murmuring about buses that had never existed. Video of the game showed a blue light just before the explosion but that was the only hint. Even stranger was the fact that the police at the time accepted the bus suggestions as if it were true although it was physically impossible for thousands of people to have taken buses to a forest in a few seconds and no buses or records of the alleged buses had ever been found. But when anyone else looked over the case and tried to point this out, they suddenly agreed with the bus theory and left the case alone.

The Crawford nuclear meltdown was only three years old and confusing because of three important facts. One: Crawford had no nuclear plant. Two: there were no signs of radiation in the area. And three: despite this lack of nuclear plant or radiation, several hundred people were killed in an explosion there and someone had partitioned off the area so no one could go there anymore. More disturbing was the fact that anytime someone went to investigate, they left without entering the area and checked off that they did. Even his unit hadn't been able to breach the now abandoned town.

"Move to screen two." He told the computer. "And highlight the incidents I just named."

The seat section swiveled to face the second screen which had the title of each incident along with pictures, known facts, speculated facts, and problems.

The Brockdale bridge incident was first. The main picture was from a security camera which had caught odd specks of black, much larger than birds, flying away from the falling bridge and exploding cars.

"You all know this incident. You heard about on the news. Perhaps you or someone you know lost a mate or relative here." He paused to take in the reaction as they looked at what his unit had documented on it.

"This was the working of these… others?" A black haired man asked. This was Officer Rook; he'd lost his aunt and uncle in the tragedy.

"The creatures were having some sort of internal war and a few of them on one side, estimated between three and five, took the bridges down in an act of terror against the other side. Only humans were killed."

"Three to five?" Rook repeated in horror. "A bridge of that size?"

"Three to five." He confirmed. "And size doesn't matter to these creatures."

"Why destroy the bridges?" McFersen asked. "Why come after us?"

He kept his smile hidden. There was righteous anger in their eyes now. That was good. It would help them ignore the human looking shell of the creatures.

"Because they don't think like us and, as I've said, while they look like us, they do not consider themselves the same and think we're inferior." He took out a remote and enlarged a picture.

"What is that?" Albright leaned forward in horrified fascination.

"This was the leader of the creatures who destroyed the bridges." The nose-less, red-eyed snakelike abomination was how he imagined all the creatures looked once you made them give up their human disguise. "Voldemort. It resulted when a dignified man from an established family was coerced and raped by one of these creatures. Yes gentleman," he said in response to the disgusted looks. "They can steal our seed to create offspring."

He hit the remote again and an article on the mysterious death of the Riddles rose next to the pictures. "The result is a creature like them. This Voldemort, though raised in a perfectly normal orphanage, terrorized the children while he was there, killed his family when he got older and became the leader of the Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters? Do they actually…" Officer Kensington spoke for the first time.

"No. It's just a pretentious name. Although they cause plenty of death. Almost every strange incident that occurred during the time period of 1996 to 1998 is attributed to this group. The weather patterns and mysterious terrorists that no one could predict or understand then did not exist. They were just explanations for these creatures' actions."

"You said was. Is it dead now sir?" Rook asked.

"Yes. Another creature killed it." He clicked the remote and a picture of a green eyed man with spectacles appeared. "But before you get any false hope that some of the creatures have human qualities," another click of the remote and the green eyed man was unmistakable next to a man with a shock of hair redder than McFersen's and a woman with a mass of curly brown hair in the midst of a crowd watching a football game.

"This creature was involved in the Lafayette incident and believed to be responsible for the explosion. As well as the Crawford nuclear meltdown." He hit the button again and a shot of the green eyed man in black robes holding a stick against another robed man with a stick dominated the screen. They were on the sidewalk of a bustling street. "This picture was taken from a security camera across the street of the place where explosion originated, five minutes before it happened. There is no nuclear plant in Crawford, gentlemen. The creatures did it, once again showing no care for human life."

"How come no one has said anything before now?" Albright asked. "Shouldn't people be warned?"

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Listen. I told you. It took the United Nations five years to realize that something was wrong even though apparently our Prime minister has always known about them."

"The minister knows?" Rook crossed his arms. "Why is he only now doing anything about it?"

"The minister, like the other leaders of countries where they've revealed themselves to them, didn't fully believe it." He clicked the remote and a picture that had hung in the prime minister's office for decades was shown. "But then, if you have a highly stressful job and someone came out of your fireplace, introduced themselves as the minister of magic, and then left without leaving any evidence of their presence, you'd think you imagined it."

"Fireplace?" McFersen muttered.

He ignored it and changed the screen. "However, five years ago during an environmental summit, the UN tried to vote on approving places to develop for clean energy. One of these locations was a site in Scotland. Every time it was brought up to be voted on, they went to the next site without voting on it and ended the session without voting so it was not chosen. This might have gone unnoticed if all the delegates hadn't agreed on it beforehand and already promised a developer the rights to it."

He brought up a picture of one of their main benefactors: Bartholomew Umbridge. The small toad-like man had been generous in his donations to discover why he'd been cheated out of his promised contract. He'd also donated in more informative ways as well.

"They went over the minutes and discovered that five times they had brought up the location and five times they went from intending to vote, to going to the next the location, almost the exact conversation each time. If it had been a computer taking notes, it would have been dismissed, but a normally reliable secretary took notes that day and she copied each instance word for word." He clicked on the video of the incident.

It showed the delegates talking about a site off the coast of America and once they finished, there was static and they were talking about land in the Sahara and once they were finished, there was static and they were talking about Japan. The odd static happened three more times.

"According to the minutes, the site in Scotland was brought up each time the static happened. We believe that its one of their strongholds."

"But," another of the men, Officer Canton, shook his head in disbelief. "How can they make an entire room of people forget something like that? How did the secretary not realize it sooner?"

He put a grave expression on his face, allowing his feelings about the creatures and their situation to take precedence over his satisfaction that another group of cadets would be added to his ranks.

"They are able to meddle with our minds. They can read our thoughts, erase them, and control us. There are reports of creatures creating new identities for humans and making the human believe that they are that person."

Their faces reflected the horror that had settled in his chest when he'd first learned of these creatures and grown with each inhuman and unnatural thing he'd learned about them.

He decided to go for the killing blow. "And because of their lower birthrate they also mutate human children to be like them. Your child is normal until its eleventh birthday when they show up and take your son or daughter away for special training. This special training destroys what humanity is left in the child and makes it a creature like them with their same lack of values."

He brought up a picture they'd found of a young innocent looking Tom Riddle and one of the snakelike Voldemort as an illustration of before and after.

The fathers whitened and he knew they were imaging their children in the situation as he'd intended them to.

"Sir," Rook recovered first. "What you're telling us is that there is a humanoid species out there with superior durability, longer life, the ability to wield energy like a weapon and control our minds, and make our children like them?"

"That is correct."

"What advantages do we have over them?" Albright asked.

"The main advantages that we have over these creatures is our technology, their severe underestimation of it, our numbers, and that they don't know we know about them now." He smiled as he thought of the surprise of the creature each time they captured one. That arrogance that they were better than him was replaced by terror as he showed the creatures their rightful place in the world: under humans.

"These creatures are so filled with their self important superiority that they won't even know what's happening until we've struck and won."

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><p>AN: Hope you're intrigued. Review please?


	2. A Day in the Life

A/N: Thanks to Hope-W, The Chaos Legionnaire, and Pan626 for the reviews!

The Chaos Legionnaire: I agree with you on breaking the Statute of Secrecy, although I think that along with Potter and Muggleborns, enterprising purebloods might do it if they thought it was in their favor.

Disclaimer: I do not in any shape, form, or fashion own Harry Potter.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Another Day in the Life<strong>

BOOM!

The floor shook with the force of the explosion and Roxanne had to move quickly to keep her books from falling off the table.

"ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!" Aunt Ginny's magnified voice pierced even the sound dulling charm Roxanne had used on the room. "JAMES SIRIUS POTTER! TEDDY LUPIN! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!"

Roxanne sighed. It was the end of winter holiday and it seemed that her cousins were still going strong.

Another explosion shook the floor.

"Ron, HARRY?" Her Gran sounded incredulous.

The door opened and shut quickly and one of her older cousins vaulted over the bed and huddled next to the table and wall where Roxanne was sitting.

"Don't rat me out." Rose hissed as she hunkered lower so her bushy red hair wouldn't be seen over the bed.

Roxanne crossed her legs and tapped her quill against the table. "What's in it for me?"

Rose's blue eyes narrowed. "I won't tell Fred what happened to his new broom."

"I already took care of it. Next?" The accident with Fred's broom had been Alcy's fault, not hers. Normally she would have kept quiet about it but Rose had witnessed it so she had quickly told her twin to keep Rose from trying to do this exact thing.

"You told him?" Rose whispered, incredulously. "And he did nothing?"

"Clearly." Roxanne ended the sound dulling spell and they both could hear their Gran and aunt's calls for Rose getting closer. "So what do I get out of this?"

"You are impossible." Rose glared at her.

Roxanne smiled brightly. "I'm a Weasley."

Their eyes clashed, blue versus hazel.

Footsteps stomped towards them.

Rose gritted her teeth. "Fine. You can have my new quill."

"The ebony eagle feather one."

"Yes." Rose snapped.

The door opened and Aunt Ginny poked her head in. "Roxie? Have you seen Rose?"

Roxanne looked over at her. "No. Why? She have something to do with that bang?"

Her aunt snorted and rubbed her head. "Yep. We caught the boys and they all implicated her."

"They talked?" So much for family loyalty. Roxanne resisted smirking over at the now scowling Rose.

"Two of the kitchen walls are gone and there's a hole in the ceiling. Percy almost fell through." Ginny shook her head.

"What did Uncle Ron and Harry ha-"

Ginny cut her off with a raised hand and closed her eyes. "Do not mention them to me right now." She took a deep breath.

"Sorry aunt Ginny."

"It's not your fault that the men in this family still think they're children."

"But dad wasn't involved?" That was surprising. Explosions that destroyed parts of the house? That was right up her father's alley and why her mother had banned him from doing any experimentation on the property, even 'easy ones'.

"No. And thank Merlin for small miracles. Let me know if you see her." Ginny left.

A few seconds later, she could hear her aunt heading up on the staircase.

Rose let out a breath and stood up. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Roxanne turned back to her project. "I expect that quill by tonight."

"You'll get it." The older redhead witch stretched then took out her wand and muttered a standard see me not spell. "Mercenary Slytherin."

"Don't be jealous."

Rose made a face at her, and then slipped out of the room.

Roxanne went back to her studies.

Another typical day at the Burrow.

O O O

"How are you understanding this?" Fred asked Roxanne an hour later.

They were finishing up their homework in the sitting room. Winter vacation would be over in three days and Roxanne didn't want to play catch up on the last day.

Her brother dropped his Potions book in disgust and ran both his hands through his curly auburn hair. "There's no logic to it at all."

"There's plenty of logic to it." Roxanne leaned over his shoulder and peered at his work. "You just keep on mixing up the stirring directions. If you keep them straight, it-"

"It still makes no sense. In all other sensory potions, you add moonflower first, diced. In this it wants it to be mixed in chopped, last." Lorcan Scamander complained. "And Professor Bulstrode's notes are a joke even for her."

"You just don't pay attention." His brother, Lysander, sniffed. "I get it."

"That's because you're a know-it-all like Roxie." Fred said. "Regular folk have to work twice as hard."

"Oh, I'm a know-it-all, Mr. 'Completely destroyed the curve in Charms'?" Lysander asked. "Everybody else gets a T, but not Mr. 'My father invents these for a living', no, he gets an O."

"I never said that _I _was regular folk, I just said that I wasn't a know-it-all." Her twin grinned.

Lysander responded by throwing a chocolate frog wrapper at him.

Fred ducked and threw a book at him.

Lysander fell out of his chair trying to avoid it. His chair quivered, then fell on top of him.

Roxanne, Fred, and Lorcan burst out laughing.

"What's going on in here?"

The boy standing in the doorway had bright hair the same color as his sister, normally solemn brown eyes, and slightly large front teeth. Hugo, another of her cousins from the Weasley brood.

"Potions' discussion." Roxanne answered.

"The Bull must have changed her curriculum because I don't remember any potions this fun from third year." Hugo straightened Lysander's chair and sat on it. "All the fun potions are next year for you guys."

"Fun and potions don't belong in the same sentence." The petite girl who walked in shared the same hair color as Hugo, but her eyes were a hazel slightly darker than Roxanne's. "The Bull has it out for me, I swear!" She dramatically threw herself onto the couch next to the table they were all sitting at.

"The Bull hates everyone equally, Lil." Roxanne joined in the communal rolling of the eyes.

Lily Potter was a drama queen of the highest order. Everything was about her or because of her or linked to her somehow in the youngest Potter's mind. Her cousins and brothers enjoyed proving her wrong.

"But she made me do an extra five inches on my last essay. Five! Do you guys know that I almost missed Quidditch practice for the big game. Imagine!" Lily shuddered in horror. "Our second string is Singh and he's nothing compared to me."

"So Gryffindor would have lost by 300 points instead of 200?" Lysander stood up and high-fived a chuckling Lorcan.

"Didn't we agree that talk about the Gryffindor Ravenclaw match was off limits this vacation?" Fred frowned at them and crossed his arms.

"I distinctly remember agreeing to that on the train." Hugo added with a glare at the smirking twins.

Roxie suppressed a grin of her own. The House Quidditch teams were neck and neck for the Cup, and the Gryffindor Ravenclaw game had been one of the first of the champion deciding games. Gryffindor had won the Cup last year and this year the rest of the school was rooting against them.

"So now that the shoes on the other foot, it pinches doesn't it?" Lysander and Lorcan asked, their blonde heads cocked to the side, mouths moving in unison.

"Shut it." Fred's dark eyes narrowed. There were a few ways to get her normally fun loving brother riled and angry and mentioning any of his Quidditch losses was one of them.

"Get used to it," Roxanne poked him in the shoulder. "Hufflepuff is gonna get destroyed by us."

"Hell yeah." Lorcan held his hand out to her and she gave him five. "Slytherin is going all the way."

"Agh!"

They all looked to the door to see her eldest Potter cousin, James, holding his ears as if he were in pain. "No! The Burrow has been infiltrated with snakes!" He leaned back out the door. "Help! Serpents have invaded our home!"

"I know!" Her uncle Ron yelled back.

"Deal with it!" Her aunt Ginny screamed.

James put his hands on his hips and pouted. He filled the doorway, tall and muscular from years of quidditch and physical activity (namely running from those he'd pranked). His messy red hair, bright brown eyes, and full lips were the reason that he had been on Witch Weekly's most eligible bachelor's list since he'd graduated from Hogwarts a few years ago.

"Why am I the only one concerned with the outbreak of snakes? Al was bad enough. And Rose seems determined to be infested." His face hardened for a second and Roxanne knew he was thinking about their cousin's on-off boyfriend Scorpius Malfoy who was as Slytherin as they came. "And you Roxie! You!"

Roxanne shrugged. The sorting hat had been on her head for all of five seconds, barely settling on her braids, before it had declared Slytherin before the entire school. It wasn't as shocking as it had been when Al had been sorted four years before her, but she'd still gotten looks for being the first Weasley to join the house of serpents in over a hundred years. Her father and uncles had tried to say it was the first Weasley ever, but she and Alcy had looked it up and discovered that Tiberius Weasley, her great great great grandfather had worn green and silver.

"I'm still getting over it." Fred said with a mock glare at her, his anger at the thought of anything besides a Gryffindor victory diverted. "Weasleys are red and gold."

"Ahem." Rose pushed James out of the entrance. "Weasleys are whatever they want to be, youngling." Rose, who took after her mother in dedication to studying if not temperament, was in Ravenclaw.

Roxanne leaned back in her chair. "Agreed. You have something for me?"

"Merc." Rose tossed the quill at her head with her Chaser's arm.

She caught it between two fingers before it pierced her forehead.

"Show off." The older girl shook her head, her bushy auburn hair gaining gravity as she did so despite the hair tie valiantly trying to keep it back.

"See, that's why you'd been a shoe in on the house team," Lorcan said. "I mean, Higgs is good, but your reflexes are on another level. Malfoy all but said you'd be first string Seeker if you tried out."

"She couldn't bear to compete against me." Fred bragged. "My skill is legend."

"For failure, as exhibited by the Ra-" Roxie was cut off by her brother's hand.

"I told you. We do not speak of it." Her twin's tone was earnest.

She pulled his hand off her mouth. "Just because you had a bad night…"

"Bad?" Rose snorted. "Up in Ravenclaw we were trying to figure out if you were awake."

"I still think that Thomas hexed the snitch." Hugo said, voicing one of many complaints that Roxanne had heard about the game. "There is no way that that was natural."

"And Finch-Fletchley always cheats. Remember that Hufflepuff game?" Lily held her hands up. "And the blatant wand use! Blatant. He hexed Corner so badly that he flew into the stands."

"Such sore losers." Lysander said in mock sympathy. "Drew doesn't do anything that the rest of you jocks aren't doing."

"Remember your third year, Lily? Gryffindor Slytherin match, that ring any bells?" Rose sat on the arm of the couch and looked down on her fellow flower named witch. "Davies mysteriously getting hit by a Bat Bogey Hex and missing a save?"

Lily bit her lip and tried to look innocent. "What game?"

"You robbed us." Roxie remembered that game; it was during her first year and first experience juggling House loyalty against family loyalty. That game House loyalty had definitely won. "We would have won."

"And instead, you handed the Cup to Hufflepuff." Lorcan said in disgust.

"How was I supposed to know that Ravenclaw would lose?" Lily abandoned her play at ignorance. "There was a one in a million chance of that happening! Bradley's next to useless all season and then in the one game that matters, he's suddenly pulling off Wronksi Feints like nobody's business! I still think that he used a potion."

"Again you go, accusing somebody else of cheating." Rose poked the younger witch in the arm. "Though we also believe that Bradley used a potion. Course, no one would fess up to it."

"Hufflepuffs," they all chorused with much shaking of the head.

It wasn't that they didn't like Hufflepuffs, it was that they didn't understand them most of the time and that included the sole Hufflepuff of the family, their cousin Lucy.

"I will say though," Roxie conceded as she thought about it. "Their code of silence is admirable." Hufflepuffs stood by their own, no matter what. Slytherins did so too, but within reason.

"Yeah." Lorcan nodded. "And the way they do it so instinctively too."

There was another mass shaking of heads, this time directed at Roxie and her fellow Slytherin.

"So were you guys actually trying to get work done before we came in?" Rose motioned to the books and parchment on the table.

"Potions." Fred brandished his text at her. "You willing to lend a hand?"

Rose snorted. "Merlin, no. If not for mum, I would have dropped that class sixth year."

"It's not that hard." Roxanne protested. "And we're not even doing the complicated stuff!" It amazed her at how slow her family and friends could be sometimes.

"We're not even doing the complicated stuff!" Fred mimicked in a high falsetto. "Are you human?"

"If I'm not, you aren't either." She snapped back.

"We're not identical. So different, you know, eggs. So we don't have to be the same."

"But the eggs are still from the same source as was the seed. Therefore if-"

"Stop!" Lily covered her eyes. "You two always find the most disgusting things to argue about."

"Disgusting?" James shared a look with Rose. "I hate to break this to you Lil, but when a man and a woman love-"

"That's it." Lily jumped to her feet and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I can't deal with you guys teasing me. Quidditch outside. Now." She stalked out.

Fred was up in a second and after her. "Yes, yes. I call seeker."

"Chaser!" Rose called.

"Me too." James put an arm over Rose's shoulder and they walked out together.

Hugo shrugged and followed them. The twins left next.

Roxanne resisted the urge to pout. If she went outside, she knew that she wouldn't get any work done for the rest of the day. Her family had a way of sucking people in and not letting them escape. But at the same time… it was vacation, and she didn't get to spend a lot of time with them at school, and she practically never saw James anymore…

She let the pout escape, but she put away her notes and books. It wouldn't hurt to play one game (which she knew would morph into two, then three, then best out of five) and she could ask aunt Hermione about her project when they were finished, then her day wouldn't be wasted.

Lorcan was leaning against the wall next to the living room when she walked into the hall, waiting for her she assumed until she heard the voices. People were arguing in the living room, she recognized the voices of her aunts, uncles, and parents. Lorcan raised a finger to his lips as she stopped next to him and she heard his mother's spacey voice too.

"This is not going to die out this time." Aunt Luna's voice was abnormally firm. "Nargles have been collecting everywhere and Rolf has noticed that the Digtmrings are mating out of season."

"Stay on topic Luna! This has nothing to do with your nonsensical beasts." Her aunt Hermione snapped in her no nonsense manner. Roxie's eyebrows raised, still it was uncharacteristic of her favorite aunt to be so sharp.

Her blonde friend frowned. Roxie knew that he found his mother's steadfast belief in the impossible slightly tolerable at best, but he knew each and every one of her offbeat theories.

"At least she has some sort of reasoning." Her aunt Ginny said. "Not some 'feeling'."

"Feeling?" Aunt Hermione sounded affronted. "You mean my raw data a-"

"Face it Moine, you can make those charts say anything you want and you know it." Her uncle Ron sounded tired.

Aunt Hermione was spluttering.

"What about my feeling then?" Uncle Harry asked. "Something needs to be done. We can't let them pass this."

"I agree with you," her father said. "But we need to have some sort of plan."

"George!" Her Gran gasped. "Not you too."

"Molly, when are we going to face facts?" Her Grandad asked. "Things have gotten worse."

"They know where we are." Aunt Hermione snapped. "They can do that now. And we do not have the e-"

"Maybe if we think this out before getting carried away with worse case scenarios, then we can get something done." Her Uncle Percy's pompous voice suggested.

"I thought Harry was the one with the hero complex He-"

"Can it Gin." Uncle Harry cut her off. "I didn't tell you this if anyone asks but they were waiting for us last time. The whole operation was a set up. They know how we operate now. We need to stop that law and alert the public."

"I won't have it!" From Gran's voice, Roxanne could picture the stance the witch was in, legs braced apart, hands on her hips, all to maximize the yelling potential. "We need to live in the present. Not in make believe what ifs."

"You are the one living in make believe!" Aunt Hermione was up in arms now. "You don't even have a simple grasp of what would happen if this passed. It would be Voldemo-"

"Don't say that name!"

"-rt level terror again. Only worse because there is no prophecy or Chosen one the wizarding world can put all their problems on. They'll have to deal with it themselves."

"You keep on talking about this law, about how prejudiced it is and how we need to do something," Aunt Ginny began acidly, "but aren't you the one who dropped the quaffle? Wasn't getting rid of prejudiced laws part of your _job_ a few years back? Didn't you and Kingsley promise that you'd made the Ministry more equal opportunity for all? And yet here we are with some bill that's being pushed through despite our political pull and Deacon and Finch-Fletchley, the only muggleborns on the council, are our only hope. Where were you?"

"I'm the only reason Erica and Justin are able to be on the Wizengamott to begin with! I abolished the law that made it illegal for anyone who couldn't prove their wizarding genealogy back three generations to be on it so now anyone qualified can get a seat there now! I'm the reason that Harry, Justin, and any other non –pureblood can sit on the council at all! Don't point at me like that! While you were off flying around on your broom, _I_ was getting things done. You have no idea how many old laws were still on record, laws that Voldemort would have been proud of. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson was a wizard, muggleborns used to only be worth ¾ of a person here too!"

"Who the hell is Thomas Jefferson?" Ginny screamed.

"I rest my case!" Hermione screamed back. "And you think we don't have a problem?"

Roxanne looked at Lorcan and his teal eyes were just as wide as she suspected hers were. She had never heard aunt Hermione lose it and yell like this. Never. This was something big.

"Calm down." Her mom's voice was even. "Yelling at each other isn't going to solve anything."

"But you do agree that there's a problem to solve?" Her father asked.

"I'm not blind." Her mom said. "My mum has been talking about it for years. Its one of the reasons that she made me go to muggle university. Our kids know who Jefferson is."

Roxanne did know; they had gone to muggle school before Hogwarts and they had learned about him in the same unit where they'd learned about the Magna Carta.

"What's that supposed to mean Johnson?" Aunt Ginny was apparently in a confrontational mood. "I don't teach my kids the right things?"

"No. You're just not as… complete as you coul-"

"Complete? They-"

"Ladies." Uncle Harry interjected. "Let's not go off topic."

"This isn't off topic Harry." Aunt Hermione had that tone in her voice which meant that she was not going to stop until they'd all heard and appreciated her lecture. It was a tone memorized and dreaded by the extended Weasley-Potter clan. "This has everything to do with how they could draft a law like that in the first place and think that it will work. Anyone with a lick of sense or understanding about muggle culture knows that the law will fail. But most wizards do-"

"So now we're prejudiced?"

"Sit down Ginny!" Uncle Harry barked.

"You're taking her side?" Her aunt's voice was as soft as she'd heard it, and wounded. Roxanne sensed weakness. "Again, now, you're taking her side?" Her voice picked up anger and momentum until she was yelling at the end.

"See, nargle infestation." Aunt Luna's light voice cut through the tension. "They make emotions unusually high and unstable."

Lorcan gave a slight smile. "She's making that up." He whispered.

Roxanne nodded absently, her mind caught up in everything that was being said and wasn't.

"Yes, nargles, Luna, right." Her dad said. "Hermione, get to the point."

Aunt Hermione huffed. "My point is that wizards are still too unknowledgeable about muggles. The vast majority of us still don't know about electricity, or cars, or the tube, or even who the muggle Prime Minister is. Yet we live among them."

"As we have for thousands of years." Gran pointed out. "With no issue."

"There are plenty of issues. There have been plenty of issues. This bill is evidence of those issues." Aunt Hermione was about to start shouting again.

"Issues that only you are seeing."

"Issues that any one with half a brain are seeing! Do you know what the internet is?" Roxanne could hear the exasperation in her aunt's voice.

"Another muggle substitute for something we have? Like _electricity_?" Ginny mocked.

Roxanne heard the side door open but ignored it as she moved closer to the living room entrance.

"No, its-"

"Are you two playing or what?" Lysander asked.

She and Lorcan jumped. "Shh!" She hissed at him. "We're trying to-"

Her mother came into the hallway and she frowned slightly when she saw the three of them. "What are you three up to?"

"Heading out to play quidditch." Roxanne said casually before Lysander could say anything.

"Oh really?" Angelina Weasley nee Johnson put a hand on her hip. She knew her daughter. "And you were going to do this while standing next to the door?"

"We're going outside now Aunt Lina." Lorcan smiled at her and all but batted his baby blues. Roxanne couldn't help but be impressed when her mother visibly relaxed and nodded at them.

"Then get a move on." Her mother watched as they went outside and cast a spell before she went back into the room.

"Merlin, Sander, way to ruin a prime information gathering session." Lorcan griped as they walked to where Rose and James were arguing about something while everybody else watched.

"You guys were eavesdropping." Lysander accused.

Roxanne met Lorcan's eyes and shared a commiserating glance. Everyone always talked about how her father and late uncle were so close and exactly alike and could finish each other's sentences, but neither she nor Lorcan had that with their twin. In some things maybe, but not to the point where they were referred to as a unit the way the original Weasley twins had apparently been.

In some ways, she was thankful for it. In other ways, when she had to explain something that was simple and obvious to her, she wished that Fred could look at her and just know.

Lorcan felt the same way.

"No, I heard your mom say something about Nargles and Lorcan was explaining more about it to me because it contradicted something else I'd also heard her say." Roxanne had found that the best way to get someone off your back was to tell them the truth. At least part of it anyway. She _had_ heard Luna mention Nargles after all and Lorcan had explained it further to her.

Lysander read that truth in her eyes and the censure left his voice. "Mom does have a tendency to make things up half the time I think. Next time hurry. James and Rose are arguing about who gets you as a Seeker or a Chaser."

"What team is Fred on?"

"Rose's." A slim girl tossed Roxanne a broom. Her red hair was wavy and cropped short under her ears in a pixie cut. Blue glasses accentuated her dark blue eyes and matched her slightly frilly blue robes.

"Hey Lucy." Roxanne caught the broom. It was the latest model, a Lightening 4000, one of the brooms that Uncle Ron had gifted them this Christmas. "When did you get here?"

"Thirty minutes ago." Lucy twirled her broom. "We're eating dinner here. Molly's coming later with her latest boy-toy."

That got James and Rose's attention.

"Is she really seeing Flint?" James demanded. "Because if she is-"

"Then she is one lucky witch," Rose finished. "A hot famous quidditch player? Sign me up."

"You through with Malfoy then?" James sneered.

"I'll take him." Lily stage-whispered.

"My relationship with Scorpius is none of your business." Rose turned her back on them all. "And I get Roxie."

"You don't get both twins!"

"Guys," Lucy stuck her broomstick between them. "I actually play Seeker for my House team."

Rose whirled around. "And who is ranked lowest right now?"

"Hufflepuff," everyone sans Lucy answered.

"By only a few points!" Lucy protested.

"And she always gets the snitch before you when we play pick up." James teased.

"Are we gonna play or what?" The Hufflepuff witch growled. "Hurry up or you'll be less one player."

"I'll make this easier for you." Roxanne could see that it was one step away from turning into a brawl, another common occurrence at the Burrow. "I'll join James this time as Seeker. Sorry Luce."

"Traitor!" Fred yelled comically. "Never trust a Slytherin."

"Never ally yourself with a Gr-damn." Roxie looked at the rest of her team and her former Gryffindor captain.

"Can't choose your family." Lorcan teased, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

"But I can _not_ choose you for my team." James pulled Roxanne away. "Get on the other side. I got Lysander. The not evil twin."

"Says the former king of pranks. I know people who still have nightmares about you and your cronies." The Slytherin Scamander shuffled over to Rose's side. "And it doesn't matter cause you? You're going down."

"Bring it." James smirked.

Roxanne rolled her eyes and prepared herself. Thinking about her parent's conversation could come later.

* * *

><p>AN: All is well... for now. Let me know what you think!


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